Rains delay intersection completion

The same rains that helped fill the Augusta City Lake over the past few weeks also prevented the intersection at Kelly and Ohio from being completed before students went back to school.

“The traffic signals and poles have been installed,” said Interim City Manager Josh Shaw after a meeting with the contractors working on the project. “If the rain stays away, the contractor is considering starting the final layer of asphalt surfacing on Saturday; if not, they plan to do the surfacing on Monday of next week. If we don’t get any more rain, the intersection could conceivably be open by the middle of next week.”

Levee update

Another major project for the city is also close to completion, but a completely different problem is delaying the finishing touches on the levee on the city’s west side.

“The last major construction item is to construct the closure structure on the railroad double tracks,” Shaw said. “Railroad officials previously granted the contractor a window to complete that work but then withdrew the window the day work was scheduled to begin. The railroad has granted a work window during the final week of August to allow for the completion of this final structure.”

Shaw said that there are several minor items to be addressed before the city would accept the project as complete. He added that the city will not have the operation and maintenance manual by September, but most of the important construction work should be completed by then.

“This is a large and complicated project with a lot of different entities involved,” Shaw said. “So the actual closeout process leading up to the City’s final acceptance of the project probably won’t occur in September.”